


Effective Methods

by Penknife



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Banter, Dirty Talk, Finger Sucking, Held Down - Consensual, M/M, Pre-Rogue One, Robot/Human Relationships, Thank God We're Alive Sex, Vibrating Robotic Body Part, Wire Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-11-12 08:58:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18007853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/pseuds/Penknife
Summary: Cassian isn't sure exactly how they got here, but it's working for both of them.





	Effective Methods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bright_Elen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bright_Elen/gifts).



Cassian and K-2SO manage to board a bulk freighter heading off-world after seven near-death experiences in a row. K-2 has been counting, which isn't actually as helpful as he seems to think it is. They are both dirty, and there is no actual shower in their extremely cheap cabin, which clearly began life as a cargo compartment to which someone has added minimal plumbing and a stack of self-heating ration packs to sustain organic life.

Cassian cleans up as best as he can with the trickle of water from the faucet. The compartment is under three meters wide from the narrow bunk to the compartment's hatch, which is sealed and can't be opened while in transit. K-2 cleans himself up when Cassian is finished, and then folds himself to sit against one bulkhead. Cassian throws himself down on the bunk and considers the ceiling.

There is nothing they have to do now for the next eighteen hours, which is unfortunate. He would like to be flying the ship, or writing his report on this mission so he can stop thinking about it, or possibly even getting shot at by some more people in order to work off the truly staggering amounts of adrenaline that are making his pulse pound in his ears. 

What he can't do is sleep. If he lies here trying to be still, he's going to start to shake with reaction, and that will be unpleasant. He stands up and tries to walk it off instead, which would be more effective if he had more than three meters to pace in.

"That is very annoying," K-2 says. Cassian doesn't point out that K-2 could shut down if he doesn't want to be annoyed. He suspects that his friend doesn’t like that idea right now any more than Cassian likes the idea of trying to sleep, and anyway, he would rather listen to complaints than have absolutely no one to talk to.

"I am sorry," Cassian says. The benefit of K-2 as a conversational partner is that Cassian finds it easy to be honest, which for him is increasingly rare. "But I also don't think I can actually be still right now, so there you are."

"That's not true. I could restrain you."

Cassian lets out a breath, surprised into humor. "You mean you think you could."

"Obviously," K-2 says, and stands in one motion as if intending to demonstrate. 

Cassian is aware that K-2 is perfectly capable of restraining him, although he's sure that he'll stop if Cassian asks him to stop. "I'd like to see that," he says instead, because he likes the idea of having something to push against right now. 

He lets K-2 grab him by the wrists and pin him against the bulkhead, K-2's metal body pressed against his own. It's a familiar weight, a familiar smell over the rust and sour sweat of the cargo compartment, familiar proximity, although normally they don't engage in wrestling matches. It's possible there's a reason for that.

"Are you satisfied?" he asks, a little breathlessly. He struggles enough to be certain that he really can't move his wrists, and then lets himself go on struggling for a while, which is satisfying in a way that he has to admit is not entirely innocent.

"You're no longer annoying me," K-2 says.

"Good, I'm glad you're happy." He's breathing hard, the adrenaline rush of having been nearly killed transmuting into the adrenaline rush of arousal, and as he twists his hips, his breath catches in his throat at the hard drag of metal against his erection. 

"Is this comfortable for you?"

"I wouldn't say comfortable, which doesn't mean you have to stop. I'm just starting to have other problems," he says, and then remembers that probably won’t communicate his meaning. He is probably not living right, that's why he ends up having conversations like this. 

He rubs against metal and lets his head fall back against the bulkhead in frustration. "It's making me want to do something sexual with all this …" He tries to make a frustrated gesture to convey everything that's making his pulse race, and still can't move his hands. "All of this, but there is absolutely no privacy in here, so maybe you could shut down for a while and let me deal with things."

"We should have sex," K-2 says. "That makes more sense."

Cassian closes his eyes. The idea should be alarming, and is also an overwhelming relief, in a way that he isn't ready to analyze yet. He opens his eyes again, as if he expects K-2's face to show some expression that will be informative to him. "That's what you want to do?"

"That's why I suggested it it," K-2 says, and Cassian reminds himself that K-2 has never been the least bit reluctant to protest doing things he doesn't want to do, including things that are actually critical to their immediate survival.

"Yes, all right, how?" he asks, one rush of breath. He's letting K-2 take some of his weight, now, even though that makes his wrists ache, because it feels good to be held up.

"If you don't know the mechanics—"

"There are a lot of mechanics, and these are new mechanics, but I would like to find something that works." He's still twisting against unyielding metal, and that's almost enough, but it isn't, in fact, enough. 

"It should be effective for me to stimulate your penis."

And that's almost enough, too, despite the fact that it is possibly the world's worst dirty talk. "Yes, good, so, I need something to rub against, or something that vibrates."

"Is that how you usually masturbate?"

"No more questions. I would like sex with no more questions."

There's the click of K-2 adjusting something about his own settings, and then he presses his leg against Cassian's groin, the metal vibrating, a bright buzz that wrings an involuntary sound from Cassian.

"Relevant audiovisual content suggests that making noises like that means you're going to have an orgasm," K-2 says. There's a momentary pause. "That wasn't a question."

"Have you been watching porn?" Cassian manages, which is hard because he's fighting both the desire to laugh and the desire to moan. He is going to come, he is going to come fast and hard, and he strains for it, every muscle tensed, arching against K-2's grip and thrusting against the brightly buzzing metal. 

"It was educational," K-2 says. 

"Add this to your education, then," Cassian says in a strangled tone, hammers his hips forward, and comes with a yell that ought to bring someone running if anyone on this ship cared what happened to their passengers. For a moment, he sees stars.

He realizes after a moment that he should make an effort to get his feet under him, because right now he'd fall if K-2 weren't holding him up, but as he attempts that, K-2 hauls him over to the bunk and dumps him onto it.

"Please learn how to put humans down more gently than that," Cassian says, but right now he feels like he could be dropped from a great height without it hurting. He'll deal with the mess he's made of his trousers later. 

He flops over onto one side so that he can consider K-2, who’s folded himself down to sit on the floor with his back to the bunk. "What can I do for you?"

"Not pace anymore."

"I mean, sex."

"I would need to modify my programming to experience sexual sensation," K-2 says. "It's something I've been considering, but I don't have the code with me. You'll have to wait."

"What's the appeal of that, for you?" Cassian asks, because now that he's cooling off, he's morbidly curious about exactly how they arrived here. He leaves alone the implied question about whether he'll help K-2 experiment on another occasion. He doesn't want to answer it, and also, they both know he will.

“It could be fun," K-2 says, which may be a sufficient explanation for "why sex," but after some time, long enough to constitute a very long decision-making process for a droid about whether to say something or not, K-2 adds, "Also, humans use sex for social bonding. I want to socially bond."

"It isn't the only means of social bonding," Cassian says.

"Yes, but it's an effective one."

"Yes, it is," Cassian says, and twists in the uncomfortable bunk so that his forehead just touches the hard curve of K-2's back. There is, actually, someone who cares what happens to him right now. It makes him think that sooner or later, he might be able to sleep.

*****

Their next mission together starts with a hyperspace transit so long that they're both bored before they’re halfway there. Cassian composes both optimistic and pessimistic versions of their mission report in advance, with spaces for filling in disasters or triumphs. Then he opens all the bins in the transport's passenger compartment and takes out all the emergency supplies and puts them back more or less the way they started out. That exhausts their transport's charms.

K-2 sits down on the bench seat and announces that he's going to take this opportunity to upload a software update, which might be his version of saying "wake me up when we get there." He comes back online less than an hour later, though, while Cassian is considering whether any kind of crisis might be preferable to continued boredom. "All systems still seem operational," K-2 says, unfolding and folding his hands experimentally.

"Was that in doubt?" Cassian says, his attention abruptly focused on the possibility that a crisis might be materializing.

"This is new programming. We talked about this, but clearly you've forgotten."

"This is the … and you decided now was a good time?"

"I don't have anything else to do."

Cassian throws up his hands. "You don't. So, obviously, experimenting on yourself right now is a wonderful idea. Are you sure that this code is safe?"

"I installed it in me,” K-2 says, as if that should answer the question. “I didn't write it, but I understand how it works. It’s been thoroughly tested."

"Tested by who? Who actually writes this stuff, because I have never heard—"

"Other droids, but they wouldn't talk about it with you."

"All right," Cassian says after he considers that, because, no, probably they wouldn’t. “How do you want to test this on yourself?”

K-2 considers him. “Is that your best line?”

He’s startled into laughter. These days, there is no one else who can get him to smile this reliably. “I’m not sure I actually have good lines.”

“I’m not sure you have good lines, either.”

“I'm willing to help you get off, right now,” Cassian says. “Is that a good line?”

“It's apparently effective,” K-2 says after a pause that’s brief but significant enough that Cassian thinks he’s experiencing something out of the ordinary.

That’s interesting. “Is talking about sex one of the things that you’ve just programmed yourself to respond to?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t sure it would work. It seemed improbable.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you want me to do to you, then? I think we’d both get something out of that.” It’s a while since he had sex that involved much talking, but he likes the idea.

"Try touching me everywhere, and I’ll tell you when it feels like sex.”

Cassian reaches out, abruptly awkward. He doesn’t usually touch K-2 except the ways he would touch a friend he doesn't have sex with, but now he lets himself stroke his sturdy torso and the control panels he usually steers well clear of. The metal is warm under his hands, and he can feel the scars and pits in its finish, and remembers where too many of them came from. K-2 shifts as if in discomfort when Cassian presses at the joints of his shoulders, and again at the joints of his hips.

“I can’t tell if that's good or not,” Cassian says.

“It’s frustrating,” K-2 says. “It makes me want you to touch wires in places you can’t reach.”

“I could …” Cassian begins, but he isn’t actually going to suggest opening K-2’s chassis unless K-2 suggests it. He isn't certain whether having his hands there would feel erotic or alarming or both, and right now he would prefer to do things that aren't alarming. “What about this?” He runs his hand between K-2’s legs where a human would arch into his hand.

“I’m armored there. I can’t feel that.”

“Where aren’t you armored?”

K-2 holds out one hand. Cassian hesitates, and then brings it to his mouth. The taste of metal is unfamiliar, but the way K-2 tilts his head back when Cassian mouths his fingertip isn’t actually all that strange. He sucks K-2's fingertip, and feels his hand opening and closing reflexively. “That’s working,” he says, and that's not a question. 

"This feels like sex for me. I don't know what it feels like for you."

K-2 has long fingers, and it's possible for Cassian to wrap his fist around one of them in a way that he hopes is as suggestive to K-2 as it is for him. “If this were your cock, I’d be on my knees sucking it already."

“I take everything back. You do have good lines.”

“You want that? You want me to get on my knees and …” He sinks down on his knees without waiting for an answer, kneeling there just waiting for it. K-2 offers him his hand, and Cassian sucks his fingers, working his tongue up and down one metal fingertip. There's a whole cluster of sensors there, and whatever input they're providing when he does that, it seems to be working.

“You've stopped talking about sex,” K-2 says.

He takes a break, sitting back on his heels, which gives him a chance to get his breath back anyway. “I can’t talk and give head at the same time. That is not a thing that humans can do."

“That’s inconvenient.”

“It is, right now, but … that’s really working for you, yes?”

“It’s the wetness, and the way your mouth is moving,” K-2 says. “That's my analysis."

“So I think if you fucked me with your fingers, that might also work, and I could talk."

“You think prostate stimulation will lead to orgasm.”

This conversation. “Yes, guilty as charged, but that doesn’t make it not a good idea. We need some kind of … there was something in the emergency supplies that should work.”

He works the lubricant onto one of K-2’s fingers, which apparently feels every bit as obscene as sliding his fist up and down the slick metal looks. It's possible that this would do the trick by itself, but K-2 isn't wrong about his ulterior motive, so he takes his trousers off and kicks them out of the way. “How do you want to do this?"

"Am I in charge right now?"

"For the sake of argument, let's say you are. Yes."

“Stand up and put your hands on the bulkhead, then,” K-2 says. “That seems efficient.”

He breathes another laugh, but stands up willingly to do what he's told. “Don’t say ‘efficient,’ it isn’t sexy.” That is a terrible lie.

“That seems effective.”

It is that. With K-2’s weight behind him, he can’t push himself away from the bulkhead. He tries, bucking against hard metal, and satisfies himself that he's securely in K-2's hands. “Please start off slower than you’ve probably seen in porn.”

“I will penetrate you slowly.”

He can feel the slick pressure of a hard fingertip pressing in maddeningly slowly. A millimeter at a time. He has time for an entire ragged breath between that and the next millimeter of movement. He’s going to die of unrelieved arousal, he’s sure of it. “Faster than that.”

“You are bad at not giving orders.”

“Yes, I know, I am truly sorry.” He gets the harder pressure he wanted anyway, and presses back to use his own weight to impale himself as thoroughly as he can take. He breathes for a moment, and then leans back, working himself against K-2’s hand. “This definitely feels like sex, yes?”

“My prioritization of tasks seems unusually altered,” K-2 says. “It feels very important right now for you not to stop.”

“No fear.” It’s not the easiest of positions to move in, but each time he rocks back, there's a shock of sensation running like electricity to his hard cock. He keeps it up while K-2 tells him with increasing urgency that it's essential that he continue, and it’s only at the point where Cassian is sweating, his legs beginning to cramp, and still can’t quite come that he takes one hand off the wall and reaches down to bring himself off. 

“I didn’t say you could do that,” K-2 says.

“The thing is that I really, really need to come,” Cassian says. “I either need my hand or a different position or – what you did before, on the freighter–”

K-2 makes his finger vibrate, a buzz all the way inside him, and Cassian would have said it was impossible for him to whimper, but that’s what the noise he makes in response sounds like in his own ears. He manages to get enough breath after a moment to swear instead, a long string of fond obscenities, until eventually all he can do is draw one more shuddering breath and come writhing on K-2’s fingers.

It’s not comfortable anymore, in the wake of orgasm, but he braces himself to take it until K-2 stops the vibration and withdraws his hand, an aching absence. It’s possible that K-2 is all too familiar with what he looks like when he’s in pain.

“You aren’t having fun anymore,” K-2 says.

“I am, I absolutely promise you I am, but that’s – it’s too much right afterwards, I need a break,” he says. “Then we can go again if that’s working for you.” 

K-2 lets him turn around to get his back against the bulkhead, and he raises his chin to reassure K-2 that he is having a good time. He is genuinely certain that K-2 doesn't want to hurt him, which is also a change from some of the sex he's had lately. 

There’s another pause that, for K-2, is extremely long. “There are still wires I want you to touch,” K-2 says finally.

“Will you let me?” 

“That's why I suggested it,” K-2 says, and Cassian is aware of the weight of the trust that’s being placed in his hands. 

He guides K-2 over to the bench so that he can start this before he loses his nerve, and opens his rear control panel. “I don’t actually know what will hurt and what will feel good.”

“Try something,” K-2 says, and it’s the obvious frustration under the words that makes him work his hand into the tangle of wires. He thinks he’s looking for sensory leads, and strokes them. “No, that’s not it."

"There?"

"Yes. No. There’s something I need to do and I can’t do it. Nothing about this makes sense.” There’s a rising note in K-2 voice that might be panic, which is not good while Cassian’s hands are in places where he could do real damage if K-2 doesn't hold still.

“You’re frustrated, this is a thing that happens, you’re all right, just—” Breathe is probably not the answer. “Just be patient and you’ll get where you want to be.” 

“I’m not patient. I don't want to be patient.”

“That is still the best advice I have, so I recommend taking it.” He tries something different, pressing two sensory leads together, and K-2’s head snaps up. 

_“That.”_

Cassian runs his fingers down the length of the same two wires, pressing them together and then apart. The resulting sensory input has to be junk data, some kind of static, but apparently it’s a good kind of static, something like an insistent buzz on sensitive nerves. “You see, I told you it would be all right,” he says, because making promises based on no actual certainty about the future is something he’s good at.

“How would you—” K-2 begins, and then stops speaking abruptly, as if whatever else he meant to say has been lost in the static. His eyes brighten and dim, and both hands open and close on empty air, and for a moment Cassian’s afraid that he’s crossed the wrong wires and short-circuited something vital. Then K-2 rolls his head as if he’s taken a stunning blow, but when he speaks, it’s in a tone of surprised satisfaction.

“That was what I wanted,” he says.

“Yes, it did look like it,” Cassian says. He puts everything back together with care and then begins trying to figure out where he put his pants. Getting them back on carries him over a moment when it feels like they are still both too naked, every nerve exposed. Then he comes back to sit beside K-2, leaning his shoulder against K-2’s long arm.

“I may have to make some modifications to the code,” K-2 says. “I’m not sure the way everything is configured right now is ideal.”

“But you liked that, right?”

“Yes. Let’s do it again.”

“You are going to kill me before we even start this mission,” Cassian says, and then, “Yes, we should, but give me a little while to recover from this round.”

“All right,” K-2 says, and cranes his neck to watch Cassian, which is clearly his idea of what he plans to do while he waits.

“You really aren’t patient. You should work on that.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to,” K-2 says, and Cassian closes his eyes, but he can’t help smiling.

*****

Another mission, and they're running for the shuttle, a last-ditch desperate sprint, when K-2 gets hit. Cassian can hear the blaster bolt smash into K-2’s armor, smell ozone and burned metal, and he shoves K-2 forward, because if he goes down Cassian can't get him up.

They stumble through the hatchway, and Cassian slaps the door controls, and K-2 stumbles and falls face down, but if they don’t launch, neither of them is going to survive this, and so he takes off with the taste of smoke in his mouth, punches them into hyperspace as soon as they’re out of the gravity well and slaps the autopilot on, and throws himself back through the door into the passenger compartment.

K-2 is still lying face down on the deck, and Cassian skids to his knees beside him. He rolls K-2 over, his hands feeling for fail-safes that might have cut power to protect K-2’s circuits, his chest clenched like a fist. He’s only dimly aware of the burning pain down the side of his own thigh that suggests that K-2 isn’t the only one who got hit. He’ll deal with that later. 

“No, no, no, no, we are not doing this today,” he hears himself saying, despite knowing that never matters, no one ever listens.

Then K-2’s eyes light up and he raises his head. “Someone shot me,” he says in a betrayed tone.

And Cassian lets himself collapse, sprawled on top of K-2, his forehead against hard metal. If K-2 has anything to say about that, Cassian plans to blame it on being wounded himself. “Yes,” he says without lifting his head. “Someone shot you. It was very wrong of them.”

“That hurt,” K-2 says, and Cassian reaches for K-2’s hand in some kind of attempt at comfort, as if he were the kind of person who's good at comforting people.

“No harm done, though, right?” He rubs K-2's fingers as if trying to work circulation back into them. They are both alive, and this is unexpected.

After a minute, K-2 says, “That's sensitive.”

He does know that by now. It just didn't wasn't at the top of his mind. “I can hold onto something else.”

“I didn’t mean stop,” K-2 says, sounding indignant. Cassian’s never known a droid to be possessed by the urgency that takes some people after combat, but there is a first time for everything, and it’s better than thinking about what almost happened.

He slides down K-2’s body like he's planning to suck cock, and takes one of K-2's fingers in his mouth instead. He has a predictable response to that himself at this point, but his own growing erection isn’t what he cares about right now. It’s watching K-2’s fingers twitch and his head go back, the reactions that have somehow become a familiar comfort, something he almost lost. 

He can tell when K-2 needs more, and reaches down without needing to be guided to find the nearest access port that will let him get his fingers in. He finds sensory leads, maybe not the best ones, but combined with what he’s doing with his mouth, running his fingers through them is enough to work. Anyway, he thinks K-2 is in that place where it’s really the momentum of his own relief that’s driving this, and all he has to do is be along for the ride.

He keeps that up until K-2 goes momentarily still, his eyes fixed on nothing, and he can feel the static crawling across his own fingers. He waits for the moment awareness returns, at which point K-2 turns his head to look up at Cassian. “That was good, but you could talk more next time.”

Cassian rolls off him and sprawls on his back beside him. They’ll handle figuring out whether K-2 can stand up in a little while, and for that matter whether Cassian can stand up; his leg is starting to hurt in earnest. Both of those are surmountable problems. “I keep telling you, you have to choose conversation or oral sex, I cannot do both at one time.”

“I think that’s a design flaw.”

“I accept that you think that.”

“Were you worried about me?” K-2 asks, and Cassian ought to make some kind of bantering response, but he can’t right now, with his chest still tight and his cock still hard and his leg a throbbing misery that he will not, now, have to bandage while sitting next to the unmoving body of his friend.

“I need you,” he says, and lets his head fall back to rest on K-2’s shoulder.

“Of course you do,” K-2 says, and maybe that’s all the explanation anything needs right now.


End file.
